Apple cheese

 After a foray into town and Prestwick..just two hours to do four things, plus a cuppa and wander round the garden centre sale corner (nothing worth having)...which would have taken me a very long day by buses....

Back home to get the apple cheese done.

Some apple butter recipes don't add sugar...some do, 1 apple pulp to ¾ sugar by weight.  I use 1:1 as I want this to keep..I have just opened a two years old jar, and the contents are fine. Apple cheese is basically Apple butter cooked down further to get a more solid preserve that you slice more than spread.

Ideally you would put it in jars that have no shoulder so that you may empty the whole jar onto a plate..so easy to slice...and eat with a good strong cheese...or you can take it a little further like Membrillo and then spread it in a lightly oiled flapjack tray...then cut it into squares...

And while I was doing that, two machines were also busy for me, making bread and yoghurt!

The washing up and the floor can wait till tomorrow...

Duolingo French lessons and bedtime for me now!

Indoors

 I stayed indoors all day, with just a couple of trips outside to put recycling in the buckets..enough to change the air in my lungs? Possibly not!

The clouds were scudding along, with 50+ mph (80kmh) gusts!! At least the rain stopped by 11am.

I'd found all the socks and base layers that we had sorted out of Pirate's tallboy...in my suitcase!! I thought it was heavy!!  A third for the bin, a third for the op shop, under a third possibly to family and a few bits for me.

Now I have started sorting a box of bits and bobs... useful "gubbins" as Tigger's mum would say...

I found an old diary from 2020...with not a lot in it...a couple of birthdays, our friends' marriage in Blenheim NZ...we wondered why they had said to arrive in the afternoon! ( He already had Parkinson's...now with added dementia he is in a home in Essex. They had about twelve years together like us)

My 67th birthday..and the price of a new camera...which I didn't buy!

Not much else...

I tried a different setting on the breadmakers...which should have been better....

Not much lift in that! And yet not solid enough to be good Dwarf Bread!! *

I did half an hour on the turbo after message chatting with a friend..and listened to football games' "post mortem" on the radio to take my mind off it!

Miles, resistance and time....

Supper was a trifle late as I couldn't think what to make...it ended up being pasta pesto with veges and a lump of soft cheese!

Ten o'clock.. definitely bedtime..a bit later than usual to allow for digestion of course. 

*See Discworld by T. Pratchett 😎

Constructive

 

The workshop construction progresses..slabs down and mortared, wood cut to size and painted..now drying.

The bean sticks are up and runner beans planted..now it really looks like a garden!!

The garlic and shallots are growing well, better than the onions.

I have sown seeds, carrots, radish and beetroot.

Our neighbour opposite is back home but on end of life care...stage four cancer but at least pain free with no meds. 

He asked for me to make a bread pudding. These days I won't use the oven for one or two items...so I baked a batch!! I used a couple of wartime recipes. Quite apt for the times we are in, with 9% and rising inflation and supply problems......

Bike Ride!

 We ventured out, well wrapped up, but with a windchill of 6⁰C I decided to head for home..Pirate did a couple of miles more, with a diversion along a farm track!! I did about eight miles, he did a good two miles more...walking tomorrow I think!!

Yesterday Pirate had the inspiration to buy the last six poinsettia plants in our local nursery and present them to our neighbours as a thank you for being such good neighbours. 

It may be just ordinary to them, but it deserves recognition.

While I got fruit cake on the way, he ventured on a short walk. He is fascinated by our local birdlife..there is nothing much in the garden, probably thanks to the local cats, jackdaws and gulls, but the hedges are full of birds. Our Fife friend has lent him a small digital camera to practice with, before buying one of his own.  He is gradually deciphering the knobs and switches.

With the oven hot already, supper was done in there..baked potatoes, parsnips, beetroot, pumpin slices, and a mushroom and chestnut roast...

The idea then was to bake the batch of biscuits after supper...but a wee dram has put paid to that idea!!

Maybe tomorrow the study will get tidied....I have been trying to get there for three days...

So here's wishing you all good celebrations, whatever you celebrate! And a kinder New Year

Biscuits!

 

Ok...read those pictures backwards!!

Biscuit success...all I have to do is a couple more batches. Then pack and send as gifts.....

Cake progress

 Getting there!

Cake!

 Waiting to be "fed". It will be getting homemade Japonica quince vodka, as that was used for soaking the fruit.

Today's bike ride will be a walk, as we awoke to a frost.

Nearly 11 am and nothing done so far...

Snow day

 This was 8am. . Four hours later..

Heavy rain cleared much of the snow by the afternoon.

Today I didn't step outdoors once, even when pirate went for a walk late afternoon. The thought of cold and wet and slidy....nah!!

Fruit cake got baked, Nigel Slater's small fruit cake recipe doubled up...pictures tomorrow!

I used the light to photograph a chainset..but as the chainrings are good but not matching makes we will sell them separately. More photowork tomorrow!

One sale came in and we were glad to see his one, as it was the first thing that went on sale three months ago!!

Success...a good day

 The glass is all in, the outside step is fixed and the dangerous trip hazard hole filled with cement.

Three parcels have been sent out , and when I turned the computer on to add the tracking numbers, another bike bit had sold!! 

So Pirate celebrated our good day by buying my Xmas present.....

He did object however that he has to wait until Hogmanay to taste the Black Bun that I baked last night...flour is on the shopping list now, and fruit cake on the making list!!

Being busy

 Make life easier... smaller gears! The strawberries are beginning to colour up

 After today's ride, the kitchen got busy... Elderflower and Rose Petal....then a batch of lime Cordial after that

The bread deigned to rise just enough..I have started a new starter, wheat this time. The Rye starter is safe in the fridge.  Hopefully it's reluctance is just youth and the chilly weather.
While the oven was hot in went a yoghurt lime cake. Bean mushroom and chestnut savoury loaves, flapjacks , fruit crumble and baked potatoes..
All very industrious, but you then think of the listings not done. Seeds not sown, family history still not followed up....let alone any more done on the patchwork started in NZ.

A fresh day continued

Posting on Etsy takes time! Even more than making anything.
Photographing from every angle and getting the description spot on so that you get no complaints that it wasn't as described.
Then packing inside and out so that there is as little chance of breakage as possible even if someone does use the parcel as a football!  Also, at the moment I am making the cardboard boxes as I have run out of smaller ones.
Then there is the posting and sharing on social media...

After all that the suggested walk was welcome.

 The first garlic and onion thinnings

And an Al fresco cuppa for him

It should have been baking day today, but with the change in the weather, and me getting busy at the wrong time , the starter and soaker for the bread was delayed in being put together. Consequently the loaves are on a go-slow...therefore they are now in the fridge to make sure that the dough doesn't, hopefully, overtop the tins overnight!
And the good news is that the green espresso mug has sold, with an order for a cup, and I also have a commission for a postcard drawing.
Slowly but surely, getting there.... hopefully!!

Indoors for a change

Batch baking and pickling.
Then a little light relief, planning out the workshops verandah and checking over the polytunnel seedlings.
This is the view from the latter

Food!!

A productive morning. Strike while the oven is hot!!
At last I managed to get hold of dessicated coconut...cue..a bit late....Anzac Biscuits.. in honour of grandpa who survived the first world war thanks to the Australian army..and of the forebears of our many friends in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.

Baking was not all cakes, there is a long savoury almond chick pea and vege loaf, and baked potatoes too.
Lunch was a fresh 'vat' of soup...a helping each and five in the freezer. Half the cakes go in the freezer , and all this saves time and energy when we are busy doing other things. Knowing that we don't need to stop early, change gear to cooking and make a meal.. especially when you are tired.

Pirate has been having a tidy while the weather outside warmed a little..finding papers that need a real sort out when we get a bit more rain. Then the last three screws in the lean-to roof.
We are both glad that that is done.

Inspiring..and carrying on

If you can't buy brackets.... make them!

I pricked out red cabbage seedlings...it was lovely sitting in a toasty warm polytunnel out of the chill wind. It was a day for Jandals, shorts..... woolly jumper and beanie!!
On a day like this despite the sun, the best place was indoors!!